Upgrade recommendations for my 8 year old PC

Posted by varzboy@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 14 comments

Hi all
I have an 8 year old PC with ROG STRIX B350-F GAMING motherboard with a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU and an RX 580 graphics card.
Here is the original part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RqjtwV
I did add another 16 GB of ram, so currently have 32GB.
I use to do a lot of gaming in the past but currently I mainly do photo and video editing and notice the slowness not just while editing but during general use as well.
I am thinking to add a 2tb m2 SSD as a boot/main drive for performance improvements.
Also thinking if I have to upgrade the CPU or GPU.
Ryzen 7 5800 series is the most my motherboard can support and i m out of touch with the recent GPU series.
Please suggest what would make sense to upgrade first.
Thank you.

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ematanis@reddit

Before you buy the cpu, check what the latest bios allows you to use. What I remember is that when the 5000 series came out, the bios updates for motherboards only allowed the x470 and b450 to support them, not the x370 or b350.

Also you said you added memory, check that they are running at good speeds and not at 2133mhz.

And an ssd will help you with loading times.

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varzboy@reddit (OP)

yes, i did check the latest allowed bios version and cpu compatibility. I have to upgrade my bios to that latest version inorder to upgrade the cpu. In the past i did try to increase the running speeds of my ram but for some reason the pc will not boot if i try to increase the speeds. they are running at 1467 :(

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varzboy@reddit (OP)

I just read that this is the DRAM frequency, so we have to double it to get the actual speed. So in my case it is 2934 which is not bad i guess

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ematanis@reddit

Go to the task manager and go to the performance tab and click on the memory, you can see that the memory speed your pc running at.

Older motherboards with old ryzen allow up to 2933mbz I think, not sure what your cpu allows, maybe even 2666mhz.
So you need to try that speed.
Do you have 2 slots on your motherboard occupied or 4?
If 2, which 2? It is also important where you put memory sticks on the motherboard to unlock the dual channel.

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varzboy@reddit (OP)

i have ram in 4 slots. task manager and cpuz both show 1467

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ematanis@reddit

I have never speeds that low, usually my memory defaulted to 2133mhz when I forgot to use xmp profile.
1467mhz is too slow, this is probably the culprit.
Are your memories the same type? Same speed? Try to increase speed in the bios, but by bit, try to reach 2666mhz

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Low_Definition4273@reddit

Upgrade your cpu to the 5600 and have some leftovers. Or go on full and get the 5700x3d. Continue to save up to get the 6700xt or equivalent.

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Holiday_Bug9988@reddit

How much are you wanting to spend total?

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Holiday_Bug9988@reddit

Here would be an overall solid upgrade for you. If you only need 6 cores you could go with a 5600x. And if you don’t need that much GPU power you could go with a cheaper one like a 6650 XT or a 3060 12GB. But the 7700 XT is the best price to performance card out right now. And there are better (more expensive) NVME SSD’s, but since your motherboard only supports Gen 3 speeds it’ll hinder the more expensive SSD’s anyways.

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varzboy@reddit (OP)

I heavily use adobe photoshop, lightroom occasionally davinci resolve. Didnt know that my motherboard supports only Gen 3 speeds. thank you

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Holiday_Bug9988@reddit

Of course. And if you wanted to do an upgrade of all 3 components for a price closer to your budget, you could do something like this.

PCPartPicker Part List

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varzboy@reddit (OP)

just edited the post. around 300$

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Holiday_Bug9988@reddit

Oh whoops sorry just saw the $300. Go with the CPU and SSD, that’ll be $300. Then if it’s still struggling you could add a better GPU later. But you’ll get the most benefit from the CPU and SSD.

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Holiday_Bug9988@reddit

And how intensive is the the editing you’re doing? While Both a cpu and GPU upgrade would help, you’d likely get more benefit overall from a CPU upgrade if you’re only wanting to do one.